P61: Improved cellulase mixtures for lignocellulosic biomass degradation

Lignocellulosic biomass is a potential renewable resource for production of fuels and chemicals that can replace petroleum-based fuels and chemicals, providing enormous economical, social, and environmental benefits.  Over the past few years Novozymes has been working on the development of robust enzyme systems capable of cost-effectively converting cellulose and hemicellulose in a variety of biomass feedstocks to fermentable sugars.  This presentation will describe the approaches utilized for improving the hydrolysis efficiency of Trichoderma reesei enzyme systems, which include 1) replacing the existing components with improved components, (2) supplementing the T. reesei cellulase system with novel synergistic proteins, and (3) optimizing synergies between essential components.  We will present data showing that improvements in the performance and/or thermostability of multiple individual components result in significantly improved performance compared to our Cellic^® CTec2 product.  The improved enzyme mixtures show higher specific activity, greater thermostability, and improved robustness in performance across various pretreatment chemistries and process conditions during hydrolysis.